This invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for interfacing a manager and a plant. In a particular embodiment, the invention relates to interfacing a manager and a network element in a communications system.
A known architecture for a network element (NE) in a communications system comprises a pair of common equipment modules (CEMs) linked to a plurality of resource modules (RMs). One of the CEMs is active and provides the switching function through the network element; the other CEM is a spare. Some RMs may act as interfaces for incoming or outgoing lines. Incoming calls may be switched through other RMs for echo cancelling or to provide other call processing.
A network element has a manager to manage its component CEMs and RMs. The manager is typically implemented in software and provides an operator interface which allow an operator to send commands to any CEM or RM in the NE. The manager for a given NE may be coded by a third party (i.e., by other than the manufacturer of the NE).
A manufacturer of an NE may utilise CEMs and RMs from other equipment manufacturers (OEMs). This may result in different low level commands being appropriate for different resources (CEMs and RMs) in the NE. These low level commands burden the NE operator or require the manager to be programmed to translate higher level operator commands to commands appropriate for each resource. In any case, long series of low level commands are usually necessary to perform single operations; this consumes bandwidth and also increases the likelihood of errant commands. Furthermore, with such a system, a resource failure may have an immediate system-wide impact, yet reconfiguration of the system to take the resource off-line may be time consuming. Also, in many instances, the possible system-wide impact will be indeterminate, thereby necessitating immediate action to take a failed resource off-line even in instances where the resource failure actually causes little or no system-wide disruption. Finally, in such a system, the operator or programmer of the manager must invest time and effort to become familiar with the operation and capabilities of the NE and its component RMs and CEMs.
The present invention addresses these problems by providing an interface between a plant manager and the plant, where a xe2x80x9cplantxe2x80x9d may be any managed device or system. The interface utilises object oriented programming concepts to create objects representing resources of the plant. This allows the manager to specify one or more objects to effect an operation or obtain information in respect of resources of the plant.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a method for interfacing a manager with a plant, comprising: a) providing a parent object representing child objects, each child object representing at least one resource of said plant; b) accepting a command from said manager indicating said parent object and an operation; and c) attempting said operation in respect of resources represented by said child objects. The invention also provides for an interface and computer readable medium which effect this method.
In a particular embodiment of the invention, each child object includes an indicator of a current state of a resource represented by each child object and the parent object includes an indicator of a current state of the parent object, the parent object state indicator based on the child object state indicators.
Other aspects and features of the present invention will become apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon review of the following description of specific embodiments of the invention in conjunction with the accompanying figures.